Letter to the Editor: Root cause of wildfires

By ED NEMECHEKLanders, Calif.

Editor:

I have discovered a root cause of our wildfire problem in America. In investigating the massive "Day Fire" near Castaic, Calif. and wondering why it has burned into three weeks, destroyed over 80,000 acres including most of the condor reserve, causing mass evacuations and threatening many towns, we certainly must wonder: "Where are the supertanker water bombing aircraft like the DC-10, 747, and Ilyushin-76 that could have stopped this terrible fire in one day at any time?"

The answer, I found out, is that the U.S. Forest Service refuses to employ the supertanker aircraft on fires on federal land now and since 1995 thereby facilitating the horrible destruction of past fires nationwide including the Yucca Valley, Calif., "Old Fire," killing many victims, and recent "Sawtooth fire" until it reached state property at Big Bear, Calif. when the DC-10 was brought in and stopped in one day the 'federally facilitated holocaust' that had horribly destroyed Pioneertown, killed a man, and almost destroyed my family.

The same is true of the "Day Fire" threatening California towns as it is on federal land and the supertankers are insanely prohibited by the forest service until the fire progresses to state property. We should see how our federal land is being mismanaged to cause wildfires and demand the officials responsible for this, and deliberately stopping the use of supertanker aircraft, be investigated and never see the outside of prison walls again.

We owe as much to the fire victims of the past decade who would otherwise have been saved from what objectively amounts to government domestic terrorism by fire. Contact Congress to use supertankers now.